Truth or Consequences, New Mexico: a Town Named After a Game Show

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Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings explains how Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, became the only town in America named after a game show.

If you’ve ever looked at a road map of the American southwest, your eyes probably paused briefly on the New Mexican city of Truth or Consequences. It’s an unusually long city name, all right, but it’s also a slightly menacing one. What do we need to tell the truth about? What are the dire consequences if we don’t? It strikes the same oddly militant note as the “Live Free or Die!” slogan emblazoned on New Hampshire license plates. But Truth or Consequences has always been near and dear to my heart. It’s the only city in America named after a game show.

The first settlers in what is today Truth or Consequences called it Palomas Springs, for two nearby features: the doves (or, in Spanish, palomas) nesting along the Rio Grande, and the mud bogs that had long been places of healing for local Indian tribes. In 1914, the town changed its name to Hot Springs and was becoming a popular spa destination.

In 1950, one of the most popular radio programs in America was Truth or Consequences, a quiz show on which players had to perform embarrassing stunts if they gave an incorrect answer to one of the show’s ridiculous trivia questions. To celebrate the show’s tenth anniversary, host Ralph Edwards announced that he would make a special broadcast from any town willing to change its name to Truth or Consequences.

As it happened, Hot Springs, New Mexico was tired of being confused with other American towns of the same name, and its residents voted ten to one in favor of becoming Truth or Consequences. A group of stodgier citizens protested, but the name-change won again in a second vote. Edwards was as good as his word, and Truth or Consequences came to Truth or Consequences on April 1, 1950, beginning an annual “Fiesta” tradition that still lasts today, more than 30 years after Bob Barker’s TV version of the show went off the air. There’s even a Ralph Edwards Park in downtown Truth or Consequences now.

More recently, other cities have renamed themselves for corporate cash. Halfway, Oregon, became Half.com, Oregon, at the height of the dotcom boom. Ismay, Montana, became Joe, Montana, as part of a Kansas City Chiefs PR stunt. Topeka even became Topikachu when the first Pokemon video game hit shelves. But all these changes were temporary, while Truth or Consequences keeps on keeping on. The renaming has come up for a vote several times since 1950, and has passed overwhelmingly each time.